Basketball On The Internet.

JUDGING by the response last night in Christchurch, if the Breakers want to schedule a regular season NBL game on South Island, the league would have no objections.

More than 6000 fans turned up to see New Zealand's preseason clash with Wollongong - yes, more than 6000 (early guesstimates were 7000!) for a PREseason game where neither club could even suit its best line-up - to reinforce how starved local fans are of top quality action.

The Breakers won 70-61 in front of the largest crowd to ever watch a game of basketball in Christchurch.

A bit of a market there maybe?

WITH a capacity of 8,888, the CBS Arena in Christchurch became New Zealand's second largest indoor facility when Auckland's Vector Arena opened in 2007.

Dubbed "The Woolshed" by Canterbury Rams basketball fans, in Australia we probably would have called it that anyway, for a whole lot of other reasons.

As a sports/entertainment complex, it can reconfigure to other capacities, including 6700 seats for some sports - hence the initial confusions in last night's attendance figure.

Needless to say, the Hawks were quite surprised by the reception, though everyone agreed the rings were a bit too unforgiving.

Word is CJ Bruton has lost four inches in height too...

New Zealand Breakers 70 (Vukona 16, Jackson 14, Bruton, Pledger 10) d Wollongong Hawks 61 (Hurdle 15, Martin 13, Gruber 10).

THEY do things a little differently in China, as Patty Mills can tell you.

Last night the touring 36ers were supposed to play the Foshan Long Lions but first accounts are the Lions just decided to wander off into the jungle for an extended stretch.

Instead, the good old faithful Elkhart Express out of Indiana trotted themselves out and the Sixers got a second game against the semi-pro US outfit.

Adelaide won 88-76 to now be 5-0 in the preseason, Adam Gibson leading the scoring with 21 points, Luke Schenscher with 20 and Daniel Johnson maintaining his consistency with 15.

The 36ers were supposed to play a CBA outfit tonight too but, hey, who knows?

Maybe it's time to just go visit the Great Wall and take some photos. I mean, the trouble with playing CBA teams is an hour after the game, you're hungry to play at least another quarter.

WOULD like to believe Basketball SA is all over Mildura Basketball Association to get them into our state league in 2013, as reported in The Advertiser on Thursday.

But with CEO Mark Hubbard heavily involved in other key moves to bring the State Government on board to saving Adelaide Arena as a sporting venue - see http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/basketball/basketball-chiefs-in-plea-to-pollies-to-save-adelaide-arena/story-fne5r4t9-1226472079222 - I have a nagging feeling this one will get lost in the shuffle even more than Rod Grizzard did.

And that will be a huge shame.

Mildura is finding the financial and travel demands of competing in the Big V - where they just won the Division 1 men's title - taxing and it would make sense instead to come into the SA league.

Less trips, all to the one city, some four hours away - it makes sense, which is why they are investigating it.

The Big V is keen to keep Mildura and will do its utmost to ensure it can massage some of the Heat's issues.

But probably working most in Big V's favor is the fact BSA is most likely still scratching its head and navel gazing. 

HUBBARD and the BSA Commission has promised a "rebranded" and re-energised state league in 2013, and not before time as you know if you've read any of my pieces in the "SA" section.

How perfect would it be to add cross-border excitement to that fresh "new" league than by admitting Mildura?

If I was BSA, I would be chasing up the Riverland too and trying to find out if the Riverland Raiders were any chance of a revival.

The Raiders played state league in the 90s but riddled with internal bickering - many small towns and feuds make up the Riverland and it was always hard to keep those in check for the common good (think Tasmania) - bowed out after some very good years.

If the Raiders cannot be revived, BSA should stop in at Renmark and see if the Renmark Steamers want to have a crack in 2013 and beyond.

Why am I keen on riverland involvement? Because it's on the way to Mildura. There's your road trip.

Mildura on Saturday, Renmark on Sunday in the return-to-Adelaide trip. Or vice versa.

It also would bring the competition to 12 teams which is probably easier to manage than 11.

But here's what I fear will happen.

Nothing.

Oh sure, there will be some hand-wringing and chin-stroking, even a little lip service but, ultimately, organising a league like this will take a lot of additional work, some effort by our clubs too so it will all get lost in the familiar spew of "volunteers," "weekends," "expense" etc etc and voila, status quo.

DON'T even get me started on splitting the SA league into two conferences, North and South, with North comprised of Central District, North Adelaide, Norwood, West Adelaide, Mildura and Renmark.

South would be Sturt, South Adelaide, Southern, Forestville, Woodville and Eastern.

Imagine the configurations and finals series you could get out of that?  

Stuff like that just gets me excited about the possibilities. But then I don't have to sit in committee rooms debating the cost of an overnight stay somewhere.

Someone once said: "Committees take minutes and lose hours" and you'd have to believe it was a South Australian.

A MUSLIM horse walks into a Catholic bar. The Chinese bartender, who has a lisp says: "Why the wrong faith''? Someone gets called a racist.